


In exchange for the queen

by HalewynsLady



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Genre: Angella is hörný, Because consent is most important, Bondage kind of inevitable with FrightZone Shadow Weaver and not something I am well-versed in, Consent cuties, F...zone, F/F, Friendzone, FtLoSW, I don't know what it is exactly, I write Shadow Weaver and Angella slightly differently in every story, Interrogations FrightZone style, Intimate handlings with solid dark, Intimate handlings with solid light, Kinder less abusive shadow weaver, Magic, Mind Attack, Priorities: destroy the Horde from the inside get distracted by the sweet shadow lady, Ruffles up the feathers in Angella's nest (euphemism), Shadow Weaver does not go as full-out with her powers as in Shiver, Shadow Weaver feeling underappreciated as per usual., Shadow Weaver is under so much pressure, Smut, So I don't quite know if it works, Sw has guard duty and a crush, That is chapter 2 should you wish to avoid that moment or seek it out, Two minds one gutter, and they were ROOMMATES, cute fluff, featuring wholesome Horde soldiers, for fun, frightzone, their way of interacting and personailties, this is She-ra everyone is actually cute and this is a fluff story
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-20
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-10 17:54:20
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,489
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28191249
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HalewynsLady/pseuds/HalewynsLady
Summary: Shadow Weaver is tasked with looking after Queen Angella when she is delivered to the Fright Zone.
Relationships: Angella/Shadow Weaver | Light Spinner (She-Ra)
Comments: 37
Kudos: 38





	1. Chapter 1

Another story in which things go smoother for them than in "I cannot weave".

This work is an amalgamation of things discussed on Discord's Shadow Weaver group about half a year ago and in review comments on "Shiver".

Enjoy.  
\-------

The prisoner wasn't shown in under Shadow Weaver's supervision.  
This had been a question of bad timing, but Shadow Weaver took it as a personal offence.  
When she saw the queen, she was already shackled by wrists and wings, and had been 'welcomed' by Hordak.

Queen Angella walked the hallway. Her wings bound together. The ties looked sturdy enough, if a bit rudimentary applied.  
It should look strange to Shadow Weaver to see the angelic queen this close, in a dingy hallway that she crossed daily.  
Many of her recruits let out sounds of wonder and awe, but there was nothing impressive about the image before them to Shadow Weaver.  
She'd seen the queen before.  
She had seen the colours of Bright Moon before and knew the typical grace of the court.  
And even if she had not, she figured she would not be terribly impressed.

In the back of her neck her shadows rose. Those in her skirts shuddered and whimpered skiddishly short.  
She wasn't sure why her shadows were being annoying.

The queen walked strongly, as if she were formed from steel.  
Strung to regalty. Diamontine. Perfection.  
Crestfallen, but only in the way she held her head, looking down. Her spirit unbroken.  
The queen's eyes never lifted.  
Her pale lashes sparkled even in this clodded air of the Fright Zone. 

Recruits nudged each other, whispered, pointed at Shadow Weaver, some laughed.  
They were soon quieted, lashed by a shadow.

Shadow Weaver tore her wide gaze away.  
A thick shadow broke away through the corridor, instantly leaving the way before Angella, forsaking it to light, as Shadow Weaver turned away.  
She had not been staring. Hankering.

The queen's face snapped up immediately.  
"Commanding officer Shadow Weaver?" she asked, unmistakably in her direction.  
"Shadow Weaver? Is that your name?"  
Shadow Weaver tilted her head at her, not to gift too much attention on her.  
Angella was pretty certain she heard others affirm the woman's identity.  
"You can call me that." Shadow Weaver drawled. 

"Your Lord Hordak said you'd show me where to go."  
"I received no such orders."

Shadow Weaver had set all this up, so many plans and plots and so much trickery, to get the queen delivered as a prize to her hands and now she was being slighted by Lord Hordak. He could not count on her help.  
She had had cadets prepare a cell especially for the queen. 

"Please..." The queen touched her shoulder, with bound hands.  
She reconsidered soon enough. Angella drew away only to then stroke Shadow Weaver's lowerarm and hold her there, the queen's assigned escort.  
Why was she touching her? Shadow Weaver suppressed her shadows from shrieking.

"I would have to hear it from him."  
"He requested not to be disturbed again." said the queen, showing a politeness unknown by the Horde.  
"We'll see about that." The sorceress glowered, restoring herself to her full fictional height.

She went to Hordak's innersanctum, behind heavy doors that were surprisingly permeable to sound.  
She hastened her complaint to him.  
It did not take long for him to throw her out again.  
After a bloodcurling scream.  
Hers.  
All heard.

She was indeed under queen-sitting orders and what was worse, he was of the opinion that the cell that she had had prepared would not suffice to keep a being of magic like the queen.  
Besides, he loudly and readily reminded her, the part of the Fright Zone complex that housed the cells had mostly broken down but a week ago.  
As did everything here. All the time.  
Could she not have someone trained in reperations?  
Dark magic was useless.  
A drain on this dreams and endeavours.  
Why did he keep her around?

The princess was hér hostage, before Angella. The queen should be hers too.  
Shadow Weaver had been prepared to receive the queen in even grander truimph. The queen was now hers. Only not in the splendid way that she had imagined for herself.  
Instead she was dumped on her.  
Queen Angella was her resposibility because Hordak did not know what to do with her.  
She should have known he would not be able to recognise and use such a rare opportunity. He would let this chance water down and run to ruin.  
It all came down to her.  
She would not be set up for failure!


	2. Chapter 2

Shadow Weaver roamed the calm corridors flanked by the queen.  
She did not breathe a word to her captive.  
They crossed the soldiers who Shadow Weaver had bulied into dressing up a cell for Angella with a decent, legged bed and cleaner linnen.  
They paled when they saw her.  
After this fleeting encounter there was no one in the corridor left to run into.

It was then the queen made her first escape attempt.  
A blinding light cut Shadow Weaver's sight.  
She curled her darkness, massively, sluggishly, around the queen. She could only sense her by magical talent. In the blink of an eye Shadow Weaver had her thrown against the wall.  
The attack ceased. The queen fell down. She scrambled back up with a groan. Her hands were still shining with energy. They dimmed.  
"You don't want to try that again, your majesty." Shadow Weaver warned.

It made sense of course that she was charged with looking after the queen. She would not trust another with this task. She was the only one who possessed a force that could hope to match hers. If Hordak had a shred of intellect he would want her close to Shadow Weaver, the one who held worlds of knowledge about magic.  
Angella's connection to her stone should lose strength soon enough at this distance.  
She would have to wear the queen down of what power she still held. It would take days for her powers to run out, unless she kept staging big blasts of light like this.  
The queen could not be let out of Shadow Weaver's sight.

More light would be flung at Shadow Weaver frequently, even during that very same walk, to have shadows cut the flashes short.  
They both pretended not to notice how they were testing each other.

Shadow Weaver took her to the Black Garnet room.  
Best to commence to question her about the rebel plans at once.  
Make it fast and strong. She wished for the queen's deliverance to the Horde to have an instant impact on the war.

Long pillars rose from the floor. Taller than Angella herself.  
Angella obediently went to stand between them, giving her a sullen look.  
Shadow Weaver undid the shackles around her hands to retie them to the poles. 

Shadow Weaver could forget about making an imposing entrance this time. In her line of work much depended on first impression intimidation. It made extracting information much easier.  
She loved to revel in such theatrics, for herself.  
But they had met already, in the corridor outside Hordak's quarters and there had been little momentum to that encounter.

Shadow Weaver felt an unease creep up on her as she put the queen in place.  
She sorted her limbs, securing her form with both physical and magical restraints. It would not suffice to depend on only one kind.  
She folded the great wings over metal bars to keep them out of the way.  
Angella watched Shadow Weaver's powers activate the questioning contraption.

As much as the sorceress had looked forward to running this interview, she was not very hopeful about it.  
She had known on sight that this approach would not work wonders on the queen.  
Hordak had ordered her to break her. She would. Even if she was not in the mood today.  
She could always try again tomorrow.  
With greater force.  
For today, she would strive to succeed in having Angella fear her a little, a lot.

She sampled her mind, winning a majestic tremble from queen Angella's body.  
Yes, there was not much room for change here. Her first look confirmed her suspicions.  
She would not be easy to break. Her mind was set in her ways. She was firmly convinced of her own morals, the significance of her goals, her self worth.  
There was guilt. Much guilt in broad red lines. She could touch on that, if she wished to. Shadow Weaver left it to the side for now. Guilt was messy. So much crying.

The sorceress peered deeper into her mind, pressing her hands against the queen's cheeks. Vibrant red sparks jumped from her fingers.  
Something glossed over Angella's mind, Shadow Weaver latched onto it.  
Shadow Weaver's magic creaked around her hostage.  
She was resisting her. The queen screamed and trashed in her bindings.  
Then stilled.  
Her eyes dazed. Her current thoughts clouded over as Shadow Weaver took her mind and saw...  
herself a mere moment ago, fastening the queen to the frame.  
She felt the queen give a soft smile when she looked down on a kneeling Shadow Weaver binding her ankles.  
That moment when Shadow Weaver had felt so inexplicably out of place.  
She recognised her own emotions in her past-movements, she could trace them.  
Past-Angella's gaze moved slowly. It focused more on the eternal flow of her hair. It wanted to linger there to the end.  
She knew Angella-in-that-moment was trying to drag time out. There were many fears that should be overtaking her. She did not have long before hellish magic would be unleashed on her. She tried to take in the shades to Shadow Weaver's darkness. She had been trying to think of something nice. Anything nice.  
Should queens be this easily distracted? 

Angella stretched out, as though she were actually comfortable in her binds.  
She oddly smiled at the woman directly in front of her -Could she see her?- and urged her face up into the hands that were cradling it. Her mouth opened slightly. Such yearning on her face.  
Shadow Weaver sushed her, smoothing her bright hair back with a hand.  
The queen leaned into her touch.  
She pressed, pushed herself against Shadow Weaver. As a bow, arching, long.  
Shadows embraced her, body and mind, instinctively, close to smothering. Shadow Weaver pulled at her to ravish thoughts, power, everything from her.  
"My beauty, BrightMoon is nothing without you." Shadow Weaver cooed. "The Rebellion disappears with you. It has fallen apart, like the first Princess Alliance." How sweet, the wordless sound of defeat that left Angella's lips. "Give up all you know. It won't do you any good to keep your secrets." Her thumbs rubbed the queen's cheekbones. "Give them to me. I will drag this from you or Lord Hordak himself will do away with you. Then we will see how immortal you truly are."  
"Yes," Angella spoke, as if answering something else interely.  
Her legs enclosed Shadow Weaver's as much as they were able to. Her hips moved seeking out something against Shadow Weaver's thigh.  
Shadow Weaver was eliciting something else entirely from her hostage than what she was ordered to.  
Angella, finding what spot she was looking for, warmly melted into her. "do this for me" the queen spoke. "and I will give you anything you desire." 

Shadow Weaver felt she could work with this, within the interrogation.  
She wanted to.  
Quite urgently.  
"My dear enemy," the queen continued. The face Shadow Weaver was holding flushed warm. "against me."  
Whatever promise Angella made in this state, whatever information Shadow Weaver could manage to take from her would be highly, highly unreliable.  
The queen looking up at her like this was beyond anything she could have imagined. Other ambitions fell to dust. She saw a power run through the queen, a joyfulness coursing in her body and mind and though this force had nothing to do with Shadow Weaver, it was only there because of her, for her.  
White electric sparkles jolted into the air. Moonstone energies summoned by queen Angella. More active than the red sparks of Shadow Weaver's Black Garnet magic. Less focused.  
Angella's mind and mood pulled Shadow Weaver with her. Shadow Weaver found she almost, almost, obliged the queen. She had let a hand drift lower, slide over Angella's neck, to her chest, midrif. "Into me." the queen whispered, patiently. A pink, soft command. Kind.  
Shadow Weaver shook the folly out of her head. 

Another blast of light struck her when she tried to deviate from the trail of Angella's thoughts.  
It whipped her back several paces.  
The light cut through the room. Drawing hard lines into the darkness.  
Shadow Weaver twisted her shadows towards the shining woman. She wrapped them around Angella's arms.  
Now they were drawing lines into each other.

If she could gather this much power, Shadow Weaver coud see her rip the binding around her wings. The wings would attack her. Her other holds would come undone. She would burst forth out of her holds and into the sky. For a glorious moment Shadow Weaver imagined battling her properly. Fully blown dark and light blazing, slicing the air, knocking each other back. She could try to overpower her. Her mask..no. Shadow Weaver would wipe her back down with a thought.  
Angella's wings gloriously struggled in their bindings.  
For a moment Shadow Weaver was convinced the queen would break out if she kept her here too long.

Queen Angella was coming to herself again.  
The only lightninglike currents striking and zapping against her were Black Garnet red.  
She tried to pull her arms away from the shadows' hold. She cried out in brave weakness. Betrayed by something she could not quite recall.  
At least the queen was in pain now.

Angella fought her with magic and mind.  
Shadow Weaver rushed back to her, she flung out her hands before her. She dove into her mind again, not even needing to touch her to regain access. She twisted and turned her powers.  
"You will bow to me! Show me what I want."  
And once she let her see that, once she learned enough about the queen, then she would wipe her memory, if just for the trouble Angella was giving her.

She glimpsed another Angella. Another place and time and company.  
Gently, willingly, losely tied, her hands joined above her head, she writhed in pleasure.  
Shadow Weaver felt the queen coming blissfully undone as thought she herself was unraveling in her place in that memory.  
Shadow Weaver extracted herself quickly. She nearly stumbled back over her shadows.  
The world was ripping and ribbling.

The queen's eyes looked up at her.  
"You should not look in on other people's minds." Angella said.

The queen attacked her with another flare of light.  
Shadow Weaver quenched it in darkness.  
Angella looked exhausted, sweaty.  
Shadow Weaver looked thrown off. You did not have to see her face to see it. Angella smiled.  
"You must admit it was a good diversion." the queen commented weakly, her smile also weak.  
She had certainly done her very best to rankle her opponent. 

Shadow Weaver found herself too unsettled to comment.  
She could no longer restrain the queen, after what she had seen. The hope to interrogate her further fled her.  
She had thought it delicate before, difficult even, when she tied up the queen. When only seeing her like that had made her wish to take a step back to either admire or run away.  
Then her concern had only been for her own mind.  
Much more had been affected.

Shadows unwound from Angella's limbs, carefully, curling ivy untangling.  
They untied the restraints, the ones Shadow Weaver had tied manually.  
The red crackling forcefield died away too. The pillars were once again disconnected from the Black Garnet. 

A solid darkness lifted Angella from her spot, carried her and let her fall slowly to the floor.

The queen did not raise her eyes to look at Shadow Weaver again.  
Somewhat embarrassed afterall?

Shadow Weaver withdrew most of her influence and shadows, only lavishing power to have herself loom over her captive at a greater height. Her hair swirled only mildly. 

Angella waited, perhaps for her to offer her a hand and help her up, but she did not. 

She drifted to the door and expected the queen to follow.  
She left Angella's hands unbound.


	3. Chapter 3

Oh, no doubt she would attempt to strike her again before they were out of the door.  
She did.   
There was another silent attack in which Angella nearly cornered Shadow Weaver. Her shadows were stronger, vaster, faster. Since her power source was much closer. The queen did not really stand a chance.  
Shadow Weaver had been startled into silence.   
Her prisoner-queen in tow did not look in peak form herself.

Shadow Weaver opened the door to her chamber with considerable effort and reluctance.   
"You will have to sleep here. If I leave you unsupervised..."  
"he will kill you."  
Shadow Weaver gave her a hard look. It was true. She hated hearing it.  
She was forced to share her room with Angella, for days, maybe weeks, maybe forever.  
She regretted she could not pass this task onto anyone else. 

There was a great shortage of available lodgings in the FrightZone. The cadets could be stacked together. Many recruits and lesser officers had taken up sleeping in the less-rackity hallways.   
Even the rooms beside Shadow Weaver's had since recently been filled in, much to her dismay.   
She liked those empty. There had been less noise.  
She contemplated throwing the whoever-someone who occupied one of the rooms next to hers out and put the queen there. She could have Hordak give the order. Convince him it was necessary. It was not a completely bad idea.  
Then she would have to tie her up for the night, in chains as in the cells.   
She felt uncomfortable.  
Hardly a serviceable solution.   
Hordak did not think these things through. He expected the queen to be kept shackled, as her daughter was, in the Black Garnet room, but that had only been for a few hours. That room was certainly not a longterm solution.   
More over Shadow Weaver could not help but suspect Angella with her experience with a powerstone would find a way to overtake hers when placed there.

Shadow Weaver's room was one of the best rooms in the FrightZone.   
The best room.  
Lord Hordak's was larger but he and his imp made it a mess.

Queen Angella appeared less than impressed.  
She looked at the great, red-spilling window dominating the space.  
Her wings twitched.

"Your infrastructure is terrible." She looked over the buildings and pipelines below. "Everything's falling apart." Had she overheard Hordak or was this her own observation?

Implied was:  
How can we be losing to you?  
How can we be scared of you?  
When your resources are this poor...

Angella stretched her limbs, some aerobics exercise. She was sore from Shadow Weaver's unsuccesful break-in interrogation.

"BrightMoon is very different." the queen sighed.  
Was she already regretting her sacrifice? No, it wasn't that.  
Her daughter would have to go on without her. She hoped Glimmer would be recharged by now.  
She had only gotten a short farewell at the exchange.  
"Are you okay? Did they hurt you?" and no chance for a reply. "Glimmer! I love you!"

Angella's own magic would be completely deflated soon if she kept using it this freely. She could only dream of bathing in the Moonstone's rays.

She watched the bed. It was a bulky two persons monstrosity.   
She caught Shadow Weaver's gaze. Shadow Weaver instantly put up a barrier of solid dark down the middle of the bed.

"You can shower in the public showers with the recruits. I'll walk you there. It is my task to resume interrogating you in the morning."  
She would have to work on presenting herself differently.  
Torture, Black Garnet chamber, comfy, in control. She could put on a show. It would work this time. She could...  
She didn't know how to talk with her. That wouldn't matter. Interrogating was not the same as striking a conversation.   
Or letting her ride your leg.  
She knew even less how to speak with her now. The next morning was an ugly beast on the horizon. 

"I'd rather you wouldn't try that again." the queen suggested innocently.  
Shadow Weaver staid in place, her shadows lapped the air nicely. Usually that was enough to intimidate. 

"Is this the storage room?"   
Angella pulled open the door to an adjoining bathroom.  
A shadow slammed it shut again. 

Shadow Weaver hovered close behind her. "You will do well to remember..." She leaned in threateningly "we have conquered almost the whole of Etheria, you will wash where I tell you to, queen Angela."  
The queen watched her, as if she were not this close, as though looking through her.   
"i will bathe here, Shadow Weaver. I thank you for the offer, but this is much more convenient."  
The dark sorceress glared. "I don't want feathers clogging up the bath."  
"I'll be careful to keep things clean and tiny." She walked into Shadow Weaver's bathroom and closed the door neatly behind her.  
Shadow Weaver was left hanging. 

She almost demanded the queen leave the door ajar.  
The queen could not possibly be trusted to be left alone in a room without attempting some flight.  
Shadow Weaver had places to go, things to see to.

Had she no idea of her rank?  
Shadow Weaver felt obligated to stay and wait.

She heard Angella discover her toxic-looking bathfoam.  
"Oh, it's green." a soft whisper and the sound of water gently moving. At least she knew the queen was really taking a bath and not working on a new escape trick.

Shadow Weaver sat on the bed, resting her ever-aching body when the queen reappeared.  
Her shadows emerged all over the floor, flooding it. 

Queen Angella tried not to walk into them, but soon they curled around her ankles anyway.  
She turned, Shadow Weaver noticed marks that proved Angella had been tampering with the binds on her wings in her bathroom but had not succeeded in undoing them.

"Is it a chain?" Queen Angella asked, as she shook her foot and the shadow freshly attached to it would not drop. It had formed a misty, insubstantial anklet. 

"In a manner of speaking. I have to."  
"Hordak? I understand." Implied, again, he would kill you if I escaped. "You are the magic here."  
"Yes."  
"Your towels are very rough."  
Shadow Weaver shook her head, her hair swirling wildly in the air.  
"They are." Queen Angella insisted. "Cloth in BrightMoon is far...."  
"Lighter?" Shadow Weaver mocked. "The towels are fine."  
"You wouldn't say that if you'd ever been to Brightmoon."  
"We are very close to vanquishing you."  
"You are not there yet."  
"I grew up in BrightMoon. The land, not the castle."  
"Really? Under my rule?"  
"I should think so. I was passed onto Mystacor when I showed promise for sorcery." She made it sound too easy. "I had to fight to get recognised." Before Angella could ask more Shadow Weaver continued. "Come with me now, I have to inspect the troops."   
Shadow Weaver tied Angella's hands together again, with her own hands, and Angella tried not to look at her.

\-------  
I wish I knew better how Angella's powers work. I suppose she does not need to recharge? She probably can still get worn out, drained even?


	4. Chapter 4

Shadow Weaver took her to see the troops to intimidate her.  
She started to speak when they looked out over them.  
She could safely fall back into an act. Not a conversation.  
"These are the warriors who will destroy your pretty BrightMoon."

The assorted troops booed when Angella entered their training grounds.  
"Soldiers!" Shadow Weaver speeched, not too long, barely acknowledging the queen's presence.   
Angella was a ghost at her side. This minimal attention to her victory made Shadow Weaver look all the more powerful. To have the angel queen defeated by her side. Silent, looking angry, but not rebelling. It made a strong image.  
Angella blamed herself for letting Shadow Weaver and the Horde get away with this. 

The queen had seen pictures of herself on her way to the troops. She was a great enemy to them. Feared.   
Shadow Weaver, or whoever had made those posters, showed her much greather than she was, which in turn made Shadow Weaver greater now.   
The angel stood still and tall, subdued yet strong. Just as Shadow Weaver must have wanted her here.  
A display. 

Shadow Weaver was in her element. Intimidating and instructing her soldiers, this was what she was good at. Terrorizing them.   
Angella saw that clearly play out before her.   
She had not imagined Shadow Weaver to be a sympathetic person. Of course not. 

Shadow Weaver noticed the queen was detaching from what was going on before her.   
She trailed a finger over Angella's neck and traced it up under her chin.  
"What do you think? Of the army that will crush you?" she asked crispily. She paused, not lifting her finger.  
"Will you be aware of it? Or not feel anything at all by then?" She grabbed Angella by the back of her neck as she spoke. She held her, bringing her face closer to her.  
Hordak had made the queen her problem. The issue was sorted, to him.  
"They will forget you were ever a queen." She was creepily close, shutting out everyone in the gigantic room but the queen. "You will forget. Every drop of your powers will be bled into me." Tendrils emerged from Shadow Weavers fingertips. They wove through Angella's hair. "You'll just be..."Mine, no. "another blank, nameless face in the Horde. In these halls." It was a big stretch to call these quarters halls. Shadow Weaver knew that just as well, but Angella did not comment. "You will aid the Horde."  
Angella looked back at her, petrified by fear, as people usually were before her.   
Back on track.   
Shadow Weaver felt a bitter sickness rise inside her. She hated doing this. She had done it too often, too wastefully.   
She stopped stroking Angella's hair and face.   
Angella saw something snap suddenly in the sorceress in the moment her attention and darkness retreated.

Shadow Weaver had the soldier display their techniques, moves, weapons and phycsical strength en group as Shadow Weaver and Angella looked down upon them.   
Shadow Weaver split them up in their usual teams later and had them run simulations.   
There was an accident. Three out of four teammates 'dead in game'.   
Shadow Weaver slithered down on her shadows to her recruits to instruct them more harshly.  
Queen Angella almost flew after her. She felt a jolt from trying to stretch her bound wings. She found found the stair and ran after the shadow lady.   
The soldiers moved away from her. This made it easy to catch up to Shadow Weaver.  
Shadow Weaver was blaming someone or other.  
Training lasted for hours.  
Angella observed.

Whenever she walked around, which she did most freely, soldiers walked in a bow around her. They feared her.  
Angella sat down to the side, her place on high.  
She could tell Shadow Weaver was getting tired of this too.  
She kept showing their strongest players. Many of the recruits stood idly by. Angella almost wished she could join them and their gossip. Though any chatter was always swiftly broken up by Shadow Weaver's coils.

Queen Angella could also tell Shadow Weaver was getting bored by how frequently she would turn to her.  
She would get too close to her, as she saw was her way with everyone, even the recruits. She darkened their world as she critisized their efforts. She would speak of winning, of power and of Hordak's disappointment if they failed.  
To Angella she spoke also of winning in much the same words and mainly of how the Rebellion had already lost.   
She hovered over her shoulder, caressing her hair or hand. This didn't do much in terms of getting a reaction out of Angella.  
The queen had been quick to accept this behaviour as normal. 

Another fleeting caress over her hand. Hér prisoner. Shadow Weaver did not look directly at her.   
She was showing the troops she was hers by standing too close to her.   
She was still displaying her as much as she was displaying the troops.  
She was slightly panicking about both. 

"Useless." Angella heard Shadow Weaver mutter about two soldiers she had previously praised.  
This would go so much better if she still had Adora, her star pupil. She-ra.   
"It is because they can't work together." Angella contributed softly. Shadow had forgotten she was standing so near. Or rather, had forgotten she was a person.  
"Did you not notice how much better your blue-haired recruit communicated when advancing with the fire-burnt officer?"  
"They did not get far enough."  
"No, but there is room for improvement there. The promise of..."  
"Potential is the word we use." Shadow Weaver was not completely closed off to her comments.

Angella looked over the resting soldiers. She had been noticing quite a bit.   
"Those three seem good friends." she spoke whistfully.   
Shadow Weaver was painfully reminded of Adora and Catra. "We try to discourage that. They are not in the same team. Their strenghts would be imbalanced when put on the same team. Leysha should train with the advanced troops and Rilk is only a cadet!" Shadow Weaver was getting more vexed.  
"But they always look for each other between course runs."  
"We don't put friends together. It spells disaster."  
"You should look for relationships. Instead of individual strength. I can't promise any results but I believe..."  
"i do look for that! These are the teams. This is team-training. They learn to get on."  
"They will work better if they bring out each other's best side. Think about it. Sleep on it." Shadow Weaver stared at her. But they were winning! She had the most power. The most warriors, actually trained warriors.  
Angella slid her hand down Shadow Weaver's arm and took her hand.  
The troops were watching them. As they had been looking at Shadow Weaver and Angella between exercises as well. With the hope for an end signal. Wishing that they could start clearing the debris soon.   
"I believe they've had enough for today." Angella spoke clearly.  
The room went dead quiet.  
"Our rebel leader is already tired. Go to the cafeteria and collect your ration bars."  
Shadow Weaver kept holding her hand.  
The room erupted in violent shouting and movements.  
Shadow Weaver quickly disappeared in the shadows, taking the queen with her.


	5. Chapter 5

It was a form of travel. Angella could sense the hallways they crossed. She could corporally not quite access them. Her senses were dulled too.

They were standing in the bedroom again.  
A tense bony hand clutching hers.

"Your majesty?" Ah, now she used the title. It sounded tongue-in-cheek but that could be Angella's wishful thinking.   
Since seeing Shadow Weaver at work at training, actually since first seeing her, she felt like she would like to mess with her.   
There was something indefinable about her.  
And her moods.

Shadow Weaver had the pleasure of presenting Angella with her first ration bar. Her facial expressions were a joy to behold.   
After working through those first bites of grey sludge she left most of it uneaten. Shadow Weaver felt confident she would get further on her next ration-meal.  
"You should consider yourself fortunate. Junior recruits sleep four to a bed."  
"And this room is yours, alone?" Angella asked, sitting down on the double bed, she lay the ration bar down. Shadow Weaver picked it back up and placed it on a table instead.   
"It was."

Angella looked out the window. it seemed she had chosen a side to sleep on by sitting there. This saved Shadow Weaver the trouble of having to tell her which side she had to stay on.  
They used the bathroom in turn. Somehow Angella unearthed a long-lost hairtie in there to use.   
Shadow Weaver moved to the other side of the barrier and wordlessly lay down to sleep.

Sleep was not to be.  
She heard Angella bump against the barrier repeatedly.   
She heard her toil and turn in the bed. She hit the barrier a few more times. She heard something that had to be her wings in distress. A few curses softly spoken.  
"Are you quite allright there?"  
"Yes. No. " the queen replied, feeling for all the world like her daughter when she was up to no good and trying to keep it from her so she could try and handle it herself. "I don't have enough space. I can't arrange my wings properly like this. They'll get damaged." 

Even tied the wings were too large to fit on one side of the bed.   
Shadow Weaver put the barrier down after putting her mask on again.  
"Let me see." Not that she had any experience taking care of wings.  
She tried to reach for them, but Angella would not have it.   
The queen was stroking her feathers. To smoothe out the crumpled ones, Shadow Weaver assumed and watched her remove a few broken scraps of feather. Glittering and translucent.  
"They made a sloppy job of it. Try to sleep like this tonight." Angella did not look pleased. "I will rebind them in the morning." Shadow Weaver said.  
"Thank you."  
"You take the bed. For your wings." and because Hordak will kill me if you get hurt of escape.

Shadow Weaver took a sleeping mat out of storage, put it on the ground and lay back down.  
She wanted to talk with her, somehow. 

The sorceress went to sleep, the room dimmed deeper as she slept, a dark pool swept over the entire floor.

Queen Angella dropped a small nightlight in there from the palm of her hand, startling Shadow Weaver awake again. She hid her face.  
"I don't like the dark much." Angella explained, apologetically.  
"I hurt you. You can have a nightlight." Shadow Weaver grumbled.  
She moved her mat away from the small light source, trying to stay hidden.

She was asleep again when the room lit up in a flash. Her shadows sprang up in sentils of snakes and dragons.  
Angella screamed. "Nightmare," she whispered before the shadow monsters reached her. "nightmare." She waited. "Shadow Weaver?"  
"Go back to sleep".  
"Glimmer...."  
"She'll be fine. She should be in your palace." And if she wasn't, Shadow Weaver really could not care.

\-----  
I don't let Shadow Weaver get a good night's rest in any story. :p  
\-------


	6. Chapter 6

Shadow Weaver put her mask back on and sat on the bed beside the disheveled queen. A nightmare herself.  
"Better?" she asked.  
"No."

"No one will come for you. I am more powerful and scarier than anyone here. Nightmares won't harm you...unless I create them..."  
Angella watched the shadows that circled Shadow Weaver.  
"And you won't be doing that?" a sleepy and smug queen said.

"Not yet,   
I have the wrong images in my mind to be doing that."  
"Do you? You look very capable."  
Shadow Weaver shook her head. "You knew what you were doing when you conjured up and fed me those thoughts. Now they are stuck."  
"I...shouldn't have... you shouldn't have seen that. It was difficult not to think of such when you held me like that and strapped me to..."  
"Don't explain. I am used to it."  
"It surprised you."  
"A queen's desires?" Shadow Weaver scoffed. She could not berate her for this. "I had not expected to find those particular ones so soon. No one controls their feelings. Thoughts can be treatcherous. I've seen so many minds. I know what it is like. How those virile fighters you saw today perceive me, in love and hate. Most are terrified and many have such fantasies. I know what they get in their minds about me. I know how to navigate to find what I want. I shouldn't have touched upon it, should have recognised it for what it was.   
I can hardly blame you for this but I would advice you to do better in the future and not go in an enemy camp when feeling lustful."  
"That is rubbish. You could stay out of people's minds."  
Shadow Weaver lifted her head. "What Í could have done was put my techniques to much better use, had I realised sooner what mood you were in." Her interrogation would have been a succes.   
"It was the worst timing. As you said, I can't chose my own feelings. My daughter was in danger, I came as soon as I could. Such a mood should have fallen away upon arrival."  
"But it didn't."   
The queen looked undecided. "You tried to get to the core of me. You found it. There is such a thing as privacy you know."  
"Not in the Horde."   
"You should still honour it."  
The queen looked at her with an expression that wanted something from her.  
An admittance of being wrong about the practice of mind diving?  
A resumance of the more pleasurable side of what they had begun in the Black Garnet Chamber?

Shadow Weaver could not get herself to leave the spot where she was sitting.   
"Now, aren't you sorry for something?"   
So that was it, Angella was fishing for an apology.  
"You brought me in an unpleasant situation." Shadow Weaver declared.  
"Oh come on!"

"It is who I am, how I am. My powers and nature are too...suggestive, and your mind too easily influenced."  
She twirled her hand and up danced delicate spinning fine tendrils of shadow.  
To prove her point.  
Judging by the expression on Angella's face, she had.  
The queen was thinking exactly of where that hand could go.

She closed her hand to extinguish her little show when Angella reached out and touch the solid-feeling moving magic. Shadows like tiny serpents.   
Angella's palm rested on hers.  
Shadow Weaver's heartrate went up. She tried not to let it influence her but the shadows turned faster despite her effort. Angella's hand helped cradle her magic as if it were a flame.  
"Is this something you can use on..." Angella gestured to her body under the covers.  
"Yes, it is." Shadow Weaver said matter-of-factly, sticking to this topic as to a magic lesson. She did not look at Angella. Instead she demonstrated her art by having some shadows in her hand elongate, some turned thicker, one reached up as to lick the sky.  
Shadow Weaver quickly closed the display and turned her hand away from the queen.

"Huh." Angella said, as if Shadow Weaver had helpfully illuminated a riddle to her that she had been struggling with.  
The queen rearranged herself and the covers.   
"Well, I am sorry people reduce your mere presence to an invitation for intimate contact. As you now know angels are just as bad as the rest of us. I do apologize for this. I did not set out to disclose such images in the Fright Zone of all places, nor with you.   
I did not mean to feel like this today. I think we may conclude this situation was awkward, difficult and unwanted for us both.   
I hope that if you must do thát again, you will be shown true horrors of my psyche and nothing useful to you. But that lies out of my control.   
I only wish to say sorry for sexualizing you." 

Shadow Weaver did not offer an apology in return. She was stunned by the speech.   
She was stunned by how the queen had not grabbed her hand of magical delights to press it against herself. A vain thought. Shadow Weaver asked herself if would she have wanted Angella to do that. She considered slipping her consciousness under those covers and show that yes, she could do this and more for her. Very easily. The queen would be in her debt, surely.

Angella tried not to notice how the sorceress was leaning over her. Partly because she did not believe Shadow Weaver was aware herself of how still she sat and, judging by how her chest moved, how fast she was breathing.

Eventually she decided to shadow-slink away.  
She returned to sit on the mat that was her own sleeping place, feeling far less capable of sleeping than she was before.


	7. Chapter 7

The next morning Shadow Weaver rose one of the soldiers in her corridor and commanded them to find her softer towels and new supplies for the wing-restraining. They gawked horribly at her, then scurried out of the corridor. 

Back in her room she rummaged through her belongings to dig up a jar of honey from among all manner of her more seldom used magical baubles.  
She deserved it, something rare to put in her tea, for having this insidious task of babysitting her majesty forced on her.  
Not that the honey would improve the tea. Horde-tea was rubbish. She had tried blending many different herbs that grew here. Herbs was too generous a word, dried weeds. She could't really call this tea in any conventional sense.  
She prepared a cup for the queen as well, if just to enjoy her reaction to the awfulness of the brew.  
"I got you this." She hovered the cup before the queen's hands, nudgingly, to see if she would take the bait.

The queen was sitting up in the bed, her arms snug around a leg. She had been watching her move through the room.  
Shadow Weaver was relieved her roommate was not one to snoop around much, yet, at least not while in her company.  
There wasn't much to snoop in a Horde room. Even Shadow Weaver's was relatively bare. 

Angella was dreading the day to begin. She did not want to get out of bed, a mood expressed in her own quiet, graceful way of staying put.  
Shadow Weaver handed her a breakfast bar and craned over her, loomin, the dark sorceress got behind her suddenly cooing to her from over her wings.  
"Let's have a look...at what have we here..."  
She unwound the ragged bindings from the previous day from her wings and removed with a loud snap the metal binding underneath. The feathers did look chafed.  
She would have to find a way to redo the work on her wings so they did don't break or get injured. She stroked the feathers, as she had seen Angella do. She held them between her hands to ease them into being straight again. The kinks would not go out.  
The skin was badly bruised.  
She was keeping a thick shadow wrapped around Angella's waist, holding her tight, too tigh after a while.  
Angella slurped her drink.  
Shadow Weaver heard this over the continuous rattling of the building and the thrum of a typical Frightzone morning, the troops rising. This soon became an all-swallowing sound.  
She didn't know if she could ever grow used to a life without such clamour anymore.  
She cleaned her wings and skin with water and one of the fresh towels.  
Then placed a hand upon the worst irritated area of Angella's shoulder.  
She dredged up magic from deep within herself and coated parts of the wings with this vast darkness. Plastering to salve the damage before she began strapping those wings together again.  
She let her shadows soak into the structure of those nacreous feathers. Almost getting lost in the sensation. She wove through the wings. Pulled up her magic.  
Protecting and strengthening.  
A muffled sound from Angella. Not unpleasant, not at all.  
She could rather swear she had made the queen blush.  
The queen straightened her back some more.  
Shadow Weaver applied herself to the retying of her wings with fresh pieces of cloth.  
"I wouldn't let such claws near my wings, under other circumstances." Angella said.  
Those words grated her. Shadow Weaver felt hurt. Those words grated her.  
But the woman was tied to her and at least in no position to complain about that.  
She imagined it was someone's job to dress, pluck, manicure or groom or whatever the word may be, the queen's wings every morning in her lofty palace.  
Someone soft, caring.  
It took her some time to get used to binding wings.  
The bandages slid off a few times before she figured out how to tie them in a way that would keep them in place. She got a knack for it in the end. She put the metal bindings in, reshaped them in an impressive feat of molding magic to better fit the shape of the wings, she balanced the piece beautifully before binding it in perfectly with the cloth wrappings into a harmonic whole. This should secure the wings very well and keep her from flight.  
Brittle pieces of feather had been breaking off beneath her fingers all the while. She gathered those casualties in a rather sad looking heap. She would not endanger those wings.  
"Comfortable?"  
"Better."  
She watched Shadow Weaver wipe a balmy tincture from her hands.  
"You look antsy, are we late for...?"  
"Yes, we are late for torture."  
"Questioning." Angella commented kindly.  
Shadow Weaver swallowed the dry, bad taste from her mouth. "Yes." She shook her head, hair flowing gently away. "I suppose. You will make torture inevitable."

There was an enthusiastic knocking to the door.  
Shadow Weaver released the queen from her embrace and wisped off to the door in less than the blink of an eye.  
"Shadow Weaver?" Angella heard. A kind voice, a bit trembling, nervous, but who could blame anyone for that when dispatched to talk with Shadow Weaver?  
Queen Angella's heart rose at hearing such a voice.  
"Force Captain Scorpia..." Shadow Weaver acknowledged wearily.  
Angella could not hear all of the conversation. By how Shadow Weaver kept the door angled hers was the one easier to understand.  
Angella understood this was some sort of summoning.  
"You can tell him she is not ready. Well, if he wants this job done right... I got him used to quick work. Clearly I should not have pampered him so, if he cannot respect my insights and trust my efficency... Interfering with my ongoing plans will only slow us down. I can crack others in two hours, this is a celestial impervious mind. Has he any experience tampering with divinity? I think not. He won't get anything out of her at this point of the process."  
Shadow Weaver could feel Angella still looking at her from the bed, peering into her back.  
"No, she's asleep, exhausted from yesterday's ...questioning."  
"She's in here? Oh hello your majesty, queen! Miss royal of BrightMoon."  
The door shut hard before Scorpia could peer in and pursue further introductions.  
Shadow Weaver had slipped out with her. Here was more conversation, faster now, all sound muffled.  
The queen took a spoon to the jar of honey and stood there eating peacefully.  
When Shadow Weaver opened the door again she pointed at the bathroom. "Get ready, you." Her voice was stern and her eyes had a narrow look.  
The honey did not escape Shadow Weaver's notice. She entered the room, taking the spoon and honey from her.  
"Lord Hordak wants to see you."  
Through a crack of the still partially open door the queen caught a glimpse of the Force Captain. She was waving. Queen Angella calmy raised a hand in a kind greeting in return and dove behind the bathroom door.  
A shadow closed the door obligingly behind her.

Shadow Weaver was feeling confident about this day.  
She showed Angella around the Fright Zone on their way to Hordak's quarters. She took a few detours.  
She certainly boasted about their infrastucture, which was sadly visably crumbling, but she did not give her too much information. Angella called it "a battered landscape" where everything was falling apart but she said she was amused that she could experience how Shadow Weaver saw this place as powerful and could vaunt about it so.  
She avoided taking her to the open spaces and open air, for the off-chance of her flying away.  
Shadow Weaver was aware that every corridor was a lousy as the next, in spite of that, she heard a need for approval had snuck into her voice.  
She held Angella's hand wherever she guided her, to keep her safe. At first she had held her by the wrist, her hand slipped down as she relaxed more. One thing she should never do.  
The queen still undertook an escape attempt, it was traditional now, in every new corridor. Angella's powers still ran strong. Even compared to Shadow Weaver's.  
The attacks were fewer and less forceful.  
She also bumped against her side quite often and then smiled at her as she guided her forth.  
Shadow Weaver found this somehow very pleasant.  
She wished for a topic to exist between them that was not connected to the destruction of everyone and everything queen Angella loved.  
Her people, her culture, the nature of her home, both the wild nature and the cultivated. The Horde would take it all of course.

She would be taking Angella back into interrogation once Hordak was through with her.  
Their sleepy conversation felt surreal to her, as did her own weird attempt at impressing the queen. Maybe she should not have tried to make it clear to her that she was willing to make things more personal, she hadn't known herself that she was game for this before she had alluded to it herself, but she had, in fact way told her that she was not flattered by this sort of attention. She did not know what she had meant. They had both been too tired to talk much sense.  
She expected her hostage's mind would be steeped even deeper into inappropiate expectations today than before. This time Shadow Weaver intended to use it. She knew what to expect now. They both knew what Angella would be thinking about.  
Shadow Weaver did not understand why she had been denying herself Angella.  
Simple, she had not been prepared.  
A new day would change that.  
Queen Angella may have been right when she said she did not control what she thought before, but if the queen did have a plan and Shadow Weaver was convinced she must be working out something, if she was of a mind to lead the session down such routes, Shadow Weaver would have to outdo her.  
She would let her and accept the offer.  
And if Angella did not, why, the cord would still be there, again, at the front of her mind, and Shadow Weaver would but have to see to it that she struck it again  
She would purposefully lead her further, to make the same offer as before.  
She could instigate her desire with a few personal touches, some strong minded illusions, a powerful dream, and demand the information or indeed, anything, in return for some highly rapturing sensations.  
As long as no white sparkled attacks took place, she should be fine.  
It would be a mild session, one to soothe the mind instead of hurting her. She would not activate great swoops of the garnet's magic to pressure her, as before. For this, the kind that could harm the queen and her mind, could ignite her into unleashing a counter force. No, this mental touch would be soft, just her and her, and coax her into anything.  
Yes, that should work very well. 

"Ah your majesty." Lord Hordak greeted when they entered his chamber.  
Shadow Weaver ushered the Queen in. "I hear Shadow Weaver is working hard to impress you."  
Shadow Weaver lingered behind the queen, to loom in the background for the length of the interview, but having delivered her she was instantly given to understand she was not to stay. Lord Hordak briskly ordered her out.  
She flashed a movement of clear objection.  
"My Lord." She bowed, disgruntled.  
She turned to the queen and traced a finger along Angella's cheek confidentially, longingly. "Behave."  
"My Lord." Her tone marking her subdued.  
She slid out, not bothering to bow again. Masking as a willing supplicant.  
As she left, the shadows in the room darkened.  
She liked leaving Hordak doubt if she really disappeared he saw her physically exit the room.

She felt better at once. Once out of his reach she felt almost unencumbered.  
It would be Hordak's problem if the queen escaped under his watch.  
Somehow Shadow Weaver wished she would. It was pretty to picture.  
She kept checking the anklet, every few paces, feeling it resound through her. It confirmed that it was still in existance and let her feel that Angella was alive and well.  
Lord Hordak would not be impressed with her lack of progress, but that could not be helped. Shadow Weaver could expect to be summoned too, for a private one-on-one conversation before the day was out. Such a bother.  
She dove under the water of her bath. Angella would be stuck with Hordak, his moods and possibly his annoying minion, for at least an hour. Enough time for her to wash off some tension.  
She thought of pink skin in this green water. She slowly wriggled her fingers, watched drops tinkling from them. She was uncommonly pleasantly weighing her options as she soaked her body and dark soul soothingly in the water.  
Shadow Weaver walked back into her room.  
Queen Angella was already there.


	8. Chapter 8

Shadow Weaver looked at her desk and the mask on it.  
She drew her shadows up, over the towel she held around herself, up to her chin.  
Many misty shadows cowered swirlingly near her bare feet.

She lost her ability of speech and after this she lost the ability of being.  
Her shadows drew away, taking her feet, her legs, her entire corporeal self with them. She misted, shadow-wavered, out of sight.   
Despite this, Angella was still watching her.

"We áre roommates, I was bound to see you at some point."  
She wasn't!  
Shadow Weaver shouted in her own mind. She would have washed at night if she had to, to avoid prying eyes. She was so careful when getting dressed. Angella would have been bound to not ever see her.  
"You should be with Hordak."   
The shadows threatened. 

Defiant, proud queen.  
He couldn't get anything out of her, of course not. He would not even properly attempt to.  
She was probably out of his quarters in ten minutes.  
The living shadows left green eyes clear, eerily peering out at the queen.   
"The door was locked."  
"I picked it open." She held a glowing pin which may as well have been an actual hairpin as a solid manifestation of her light powers. She twirled it in her long fingers. Still looking at Shadow Weaver's shapeless swirling. She focused politely on the eyes.

"He didn't seem too taken with me." the queen confided.   
Shadows darkened around the eyes, they closed in and took those away as well.  
"He has little patience." Shadow Weaver confirmed. "The hard, long work of breaking you is up to me." Angella heard the sorceress' nails clack together even if there was no bodily shape to spy, she was there in a self-turned reality.  
Angella gestured for her to sit beside her, and talk. 

"He is tinkering at something." Angella said. "A weapon? He does not come across as very interested in his own war." She spoke in a tone that so very openly invited Shadow Weaver to share her grievances. "It is...his war, isn't it?"

The darkness settled beside her, putting at least some weight down, Angella felt that.  
"Yes, he wants to conquer the planet desperately. It is only for him and his vanity that we do this. But you are right, he is not very interested in it. He leaves the work mainly to others, who he can bully into doing this while providing very little information on his exact wishes. He does not communicate well. This makes catering to him tricky, even to me."  
A shadow drew on the covers, a finger, doodling.

Angella looked up. A scarred woman was sitting next to her. Unhidden and solid.   
The towel around her had re-materialised as well.  
Shadow Weaver looked at her, she took her time doing so. 

"What is that?" Shadow Weaver snarled after a moment, the corner of her lip pulling up too high.  
"My suitcase."  
"Where did you get a suitcase?"   
Angella smiled at the way the gash over Shadow Weaver's teeth spread as she spoke.  
"I brought it with me from Bright Moon. Just in case. It was a bit of a gamble. I actually didn't expect it to get in, but your Lord Hordak returned it to me, just now. He said it passed inspection and was deemed harmless."  
Shadow Weaver covered the more slashed side of her face with her hand to shield it from Angella's gaze.  
"Wait," Angella searched through her suitcase. She pulled out a gossamer purple piece of cloth. "If I drape this scarf like... so..."  
She used a few pins and arranged the cloth so that only her sparkling pink eyes were distinctly visible. This look was elegant and beautiful on her.   
Shadow Weaver had unknowingly lowered her hand again from her mouth.  
"...could be more comfortable than a mask. If you want to keep the scars hidden. Now I can be mysterious, like you, we could take turns. You... shouldn't cover those eyes."  
Shadow Weaver reached up with elegant sharp fingers, like pincettes, drew the pins out and took the scarf off Angella's face.  
"That is nonsense. It is barely there."  
"I suppose so..." Angella admitted, she brought her hand to Shadow Weaver's fortunately uncovered cheek. She felt the roughness of her scars against her knuckles and the accompanying smoothness.

"I don't mean to offend." Angella leaned in closer to her roommate. She searched her eyes for emotions. "We are together in this and I am just looking for something to do here. Nice things. Someone to stand and share with."  
Bright Moon people, so positive, so busy collecting lovers like stray puppies.   
How typical, how very typical, even their queen, pure and pink and strong.

Angella's fingertips explored, traced the frayed skin next to her eyes. She observed the fragmented state of her irises.  
She thought of her gardens. Those greens, the pastel flowers.   
"I love green. It is one of my favourite colours."

Shadow Weaver felt a haste to change the topic.  
"Who brought you here? Lord Hordak wouldn't let you walk back unescorted."  
"Why not? Where would I go?" Angella laughed, but Shadow Weaver was seriously questioning her. "Oh, a young fellow walked with me. Terrified of running into you, stuttered a bit, pleasant company, clumsy. Kyle?"  
"Kyle." Such needlessly dark inflection in a single word.  
"Yes, I suppose."  
Angella was prepared to stick up for the boy.  
He had in fact, in his boundless clumsy kindness given the queen a lead on where the Horde might be keeping Bow. He had been taken here with Glimmer. Angella had not seen him at the exchange and intended to find him.  
"I thought I'd spare him the encounter."  
Shadow Weaver laughed, her mouth appearing much larger as she laughed, beautifully.   
Angella smiled at her.   
She loved green, Shadow Weaver's thoughts repeated.

Shadow Weaver looked away. "Hordak wasted our morning." she said.   
Angella was stil holding her face, turned it back to face her. "Do you think Hordak put me with someone I'd like on purpose?"

Shadow Weaver laughed again and there was no mouth Angella had wanted more. "Believe me, he has no clue."  
Shadow Weaver gave in. She dipped in and kissed her.

Shadow Weaver's hair was floating, dry by magic, yet damp to touch.   
Angella's hand felt clammy on her cheek. Angella brought the hand higher to hold her in her hair.   
The queen opened her mouth, very deeply kissed her and let her be kissed.  
"That wasn't what I meant." Angella admitted, endeared.  
The queen looked at her fondly, from so close that her open mouth would be ideal to lean back into.

Shadow Weaver's eyes were wide, her mouth had gone small.   
Angella saw her wait and swallow slowly.  
Her shadows ran for away from her and fled under the door. Shadow Weaver could already see herself outside and scream her lungs out in anger and at her own stupidity.

"But it is a good idea."  
Angella kissed her again, as she would many more times more over. Her hand touching her on her bare back. She took the towel off Shadow Weaver. Most of the towel had already fallen off on the bed.

"How angry will he be if we waste more time reserved for questioning?" Queen Angella asked.  
"Who cares about Hordak?"


	9. Chapter 9

"I need to get out of these clothes." Angella stood up. "You don't mind if I make this situation more fair for you?" She started peeling off her clothes. "I don't see how one can stand such rotten meetings with Hordak and not feel in dire need of a change of clothes." she continued, pulling off her bodice. She swept her cloak into her suitcase and placed the gloves over it.

Shadow Weaver sat on her bed, all of her, down to the faintest shadow ebbing, had gone completely still.   
Angella stripped down to her underwear.  
"Is it okay to show you what I look like?"  
Green eyes took in the lissom body. 

Angella gently touched her upperarm. "You've gone very quiet. Are you allright?"  
Shadow Weaver leaned back for her, although the queen's touch had been without pressure.

Angella kissed her sweetly.  
"I know I am being silly," the celestial goddess whispered. "it is what I do when I actually want something."

Angella stepped out of her underwear, taking the final piece from her legs.   
She looked very happy.

Shadow Weaver had always experienced "want" as a very positive emotion herself. She considered it most motivating.   
Yet, only a moment ago, it had made her feel stupid for the first time. To think that this great, beautiful queen of BrightMoon could have made fun of her for kissing her.   
Shadow Weaver suspected she still looked panicked.

Leaning forward, Angella gazed upon Shadow Weaver's closed lips.   
She rested her thumb where the skin was missing and the pretty fang jutted up, gave it a smooth rub. She looked as if she was looking at something pretty.   
She kissed her again. The kiss chased both their worries away, faster than mind magic ever could.  
Maybe, Shadow Weaver thought, the analytic side to her, there was something to explore there. 

When Angella drew back again she was blushing.   
She did not step forward.

Shadow Weaver extended her arm, holding it very straight at her, held out her hand to her, that hand really had no business being that graceful.  
Angella took her hand. 

She moved herself to the bed. She sat down in front of her, a sort of smug look on her face. A watery smile of being in thrall.  
The queen breathed in and out, sitting still, her legs folded under her, her back straight and trying to relax with open eyes.

Shadow Weaver pulled up her legs as well, she crept right before her.  
They sat undressed together on the bed as a couple of people with a mundane, fresh crush. 

Angella looked at her with the same shy sloppy look.  
A couple, curious.  
About to give in.

They were both shining in their elements.  
And Shadow Weaver had to come to terms with the fact that Angella was, in a respectful and adult manner, undeniably unbearably cute.  
The sorceress looked down at her own hands. Her ash coloured skin, that once held a green gleam, the long nails. She was not certain she could do this.  
Her dark swirled closer around her.  
The unqueen, not quite a queen, too much a queen touched her cheek.

Shadow Weaver arched a no longer there eyebrow.  
She drew up a finger to Angella's jaw, slid it under her head, balancing her on her fingers.   
Angella pressed a lazy smile to Shadow Weaver's lips. 

Angella's hand danced over the covers, nearing where Shadow Weaver sat, kneeled, her legs slightly, strongly open.

"And what," Shadow Weaver asked as she inched forward. "does her majesty think she's doing?"  
Angella's slim hand burrowed under her, barely touching her. Close enough that they could sense each other's warmth.  
Shadow Weaver touched the hand , trailed her own momentarily, idly over Angella's arm.  
Angella trailed her hand in much the same way, lighty, decoratively, swirly, back and forth, over and into a more intimate place.

"Don't you know?" Angella answered primly and kissed her again, taking her closer, one hand wrapping up in her hair, her other hand digging in further into the sorceress.  
Shadow Weaver kissed her back hard, whimpering, breathing, exclaiming into her mouth.

She watches those innocent purple eyes of the one who was stroking her loftily, whose fingers pressured her into greater affections.

Shadow Weaver rapidly sought out the same spot between Angella's legs. Its soft beauty was one of pale hair, downy, as small feathers, likely they were exactly that. 

Shadow Weaver slid easily into her.   
Her fingers coated into a dense darkness to take away the sharp edge her fingernails would give.

Angella angled her head back. Lightly, blissfully. At this first intimate touch. Angella had forgotten how happy this makes her.   
Forgotten how soft it is to be touched, how much softer than any other touch. 

Her words drifted. "How close were you to yielding this to me yesterday?"   
"That would be a professional secret."


	10. Chapter 10

Soon Shadow Weaver was licking her between her legs with her darkness. It was quite different a sensation than mouth or fingers but certainly no less effective or pleasing.  
As they kept kissing, they would both slow down at times, to communicate to the other that they would be happy to be kissing for hours if the other wished that. They read it in each other's touches, the want for the other to know that option was there.  
But both clearly sought out more throughout their easy embraces and quickly recognized this too. Certainly, they were being hasty at first. Fingertips sliding in each other, feverishly holding each other, finding how to hold and mold to the other's body, a strong exploring to grow more attune in playing together.  
Angella grasped at any part of Shadow Weaver, and her living dark, she could reach.  
She was clinging to her in a way that made Shadow Weaver evidently amused.  
This presumably too straight and too proud queen, and, revealed, desperate. Angella felt herself object to the sorceress' laugh by kissing her again.  
From that moment onwards Angella could not keep track of the range of elation she felt rapidly brought on by Shadow Weaver's helpful doings.  
She shoved aside unimportant thoughts, such as taking down a score of her own pleasure. Shadow Weaver quickly repeated those same actions, at Angella's request, more roughly, which lended itself to far quicker results.  
Shadow Weaver stroked Angella's face, as the queen stared, quite numb, quite oversensitive in her enjoyment, at her dark roommate, bedmate.  
Even the sorceress was growing breathless.

"Lie down." Shadow Weaver said. Angella was more aware of the words than she actually heard them.   
She did as she was told. Rather to Shadow Weaver's surprise, she was more compliant here than during a similar situation framed in interrogations.  
The queen gazed at her as Shadow Weaver raised herself up between Angella's legs, to watch her from above. Such affection lay in Shadow Weaver's movements Angella thought it quite striking.  
And then, Shadow Weaver lay down beside her, watching Angella closely.   
Shadow Weaver's touches had gone still.  
Her hand pooled between Angella's thighs, motionless. Shadow Weaver flexed her shoulder. Angella smiled at the mere way she moved to get comfortable.  
"Hmm," Angella spoke, falsely considering, for she had precious few thoughts in her mind now. She could afford herself not to have more than a few thoughts. So she was allowing herself this.  
"I love you.", spoke Angella, she snaked an arm around Shadow Weaver and kissed her shoulder.   
Shadow Weaver stopped, Angella felt her halt herself.   
"Don't get spooked. It is just something people, I say," she confessed. "a lot, when in this situation." The situation of being knuckle-deep in one another. The situation of being intimate. "So I may as well warn you of it. We don't have to continue if you don't like that." she whispered. "I will only say it more from now on. It is silly." Despite Angella's smile, Shadow Weaver could see guilt in her face for a fraction of a moment. "Don't mind it."  
Shadow Weaver pulled Angella to her. "No, that is fine." she replied, her voice equally thin as the queen's, if not more so. She was not feeling quite herself, to have to react to something like those words. She had landed somehow in a different life.

Angella looked closely at her lips and kissed her again, tentatively and less tentatively.   
"I love you," she said again, holding her head next to hers and breathing patiently, waiting for her to react.  
Shadow Weaver felt Angella wriggle for more contact. She twisted fingers, and more, into her.   
"That feels nice." said Angella.  
Shadow Weaver shook her head, as in a joke.

Angella was starting to recognize the distinct feel of her. This ebbing dark was not impersonal at all. She could sense the woman behind, inside it as strongly as she could taste her kisses, or feel her skin grace her own.   
She felt her in every fiber, every movement that her forces made. She could read those sensations and reactions, just as well as the emotions on her face or the pressure of her body, her muscles, flesh, skin against her.  
As the dark was closing in around Angella, she saw and felt her own light. Even at the interludes when she closed her eyes she saw light. 

Shadow Weaver had taken place between her legs.  
She inclined her head and ate her out.   
Angella opened her eyes again.  
Her hair was floating mildly now, deceptively mildly.   
Angella had already noticed how it would move more wildly the grander powers she wielded.   
Shadow Weaver was tasting her light.   
Tendrils drifted to the ceiling. 

"My beauty," Shadow Weaver traced a hand down Angella's chest, her breast and stomach, to pauze. She executed a long lean over her, happily. This moment cheered her up. It carried a mundane calmth to her, feeling more akin to her regular intimidations. This was a situation she controled.   
Angella could also see her powers were bound to her emotions, for now her hair moved very freely again, the happier she was.   
"and what will you give me in exchange ... for this?"  
Angella brought a slim, conspiratorially finger up to Shadow Weaver's lips.   
"In exchange?" she whispered sweetly. "You are already getting a queen."  
"Am I truly?"  
"What does this look like then?"  
Angella gently moved her hips.  
Serious eyes looked back at her and the queen could swear Shadow Weaver's ears twitched.  
Too good to be true. As if reality would run away from her as soon as she claimed it. Or indeed questioned Angella's offer.  
"A pretty and not unpleasant way to spend the day." Shadow Weaver kissed her.  
And for what time they had, it would be. Shadow Weaver would see to that. She would give Angella this day to its full potential come into fruition. As she had planned to do.

The sorceress raised Angella unto her fingers.  
Angella leaned back, strained, her wings caught under her, the queen moved a bit aside, not to have them trapped at a bad angle.   
A strangled sound escaped her.   
She let herself follow Shadow Weaver's touch. Shadow Weaver licked her legs, kissed her thighs. Shadow Weaver always fluently adjusting, Angella always chasing her, lifting her hips some more to do so, gradually, as if shy.  
She curled a leg into Shadow Weaver's neck, onto her back.  
Angella pushed her hips up before Shadow Weaver's face, smearing herself over her lips.  
She smiled and made a happy sound when shadows wrapped around her wraist, grappling her to her.

Shadow Weaver saw her laved in kisses and ministratons. She relished in raving touches.  
She enjoyed Angella throwing her hips up repeatedly to give her better acces.  
Shadow Weaver chuckled, surprised at her own laughter. She began stroking her hips soothingy.  
Through the clusters of shadows Shadow Weaver was getting a sense of her, inside and out.   
"I can fill you. Tell me if that is good for you."  
"Yes, give me your darkness."   
"I will not force any part of you. It will completely take your shape and only what space your body will give me. I will mold my shadows to accomodate to you."  
Angella nodded, again with soft eyes that could not be directed at her, yet undeniably were.  
"I will take you from the inside with pressures and pulls."  
A warmt spread inside Angella. She could not tell how much of the warmth was Shadow Weaver and how much was already herself, welcoming her.   
She curled and coiled heavily inside of her. Angella loved this.  
More shadows clustered by to get a true hold of the queen.  
Shadow Weaver immersed herself into her shadows, into Angella.  
She nestled, settled inside her.   
She listened to Angella's small utterings encouraging and guiding her on.  
Her heartbeat.   
Her loving clenches.  
Shadow Weaver looked up at her, a fairy whisper of Angella caught her attention. "Don't stop."  
Shadow Weaver put her mouth to the flesh, rich and intimate displayed before her, she graceously sucked with her mouth. Her dark lodged, then rooted firmly inside her, grew heavier, pressed down into the queen. Twisting. Angella made a muffled sound again.

Angella watched her frequently,   
that woman was wasted here.

Whenever it became too much for Angella, she indicated this, Shadow Weaver stopped and they pauzed to continue later. Often Angella simply lay still for a long while because of how delighted she felt.   
Shadow Weaver's shadows would slope to the side, giving her space until Angella reached out for her again. She would always look out for Shadow Weaver in these moment. Angella's touch doused the darkness, the tangeable shadowswirls obfuscating her, and she would find her obscured shapes to form her body in caresses making Shadow Weaver reveal herself.

Angella felt from the way Shadow Weaver carried her with shadow tendrils, draped loosely around her thighs, she could move her as she pleased. She did not, instead she let those slip away from holding her, adding a slanting spin to their motion.  
Angella took the hint given to her by the shadows and turned over.  
Shadow Weaver positioned herself behind her on the bed. She was keeping her tactics simple, unimpressive. This was not to be a powerdisplay. She was to ease her into comfort and trust.   
Besides dipping into her felt special with every slight progression and she was still discovering the joys and relevance to that sensation herself.  
She rubbed over her back, between her still bound wings. How lithe and radient those looked now, like there was no weight to them at all.   
Angella was aware that Shadow Weaver was keeping her solid, bodily form and not completely dissapeared into shadows yet.  
From this angle as well, Angella showed nothing but an unsationable hunger for her, and Shadow Weaver discovered she could scream.   
She had thought angels to be impervious, lacking a sex drive. She had been sorely mistaken.

This force, this woman, pounding into her.  
All around her, always there to catch her.   
She pulling up beauty in her.  
Angella was not at all fond of making love in the dark, but Shadow Weaver's dark did not feel as oppressive.  
Darkness was the wrong word for her magic. It was more vibrant. Angella's pleasantly hazy thoughts came up with the word sable. That was the word. Black that somehow sounded like light. Sable was what enveloped, embraced, enclosed her.  
Angella looked behind her at Shadow Weaver and the sorceress kissed her. 

Angella's hands clutched for covers. Her face resting on a pillow.   
It was beautiful how Angella flattened to the bed. How she held her bottom up pressed against her and her back, her spine, glided down.   
The angel fracturing beneath her in light. Shadow Weaver had been aware of her falling apart several times by now.  
She leaned over her. She stroked her hair and back with her hands.  
Shadow Weaver was growing rapidly attached to the feel of her hips, the curve of her back and shoulders, the way she set her heels, at times curled her toes, her skin, the feel and sound of her smiles.  
Angella felt the tenebrous warmth of Shadow Weaver splay out over her back.   
She talked to her ear, words Angella only registered momentarily and had her scream louder, eclipsing Shadow Weaver and her voice.  
Angella was warm and calming and screaming.   
There was a beautiful shine to her ever since they began. In shadows embraced Angella glowed.  
Her own nightlight.  
Who had nothing to fear from the dark.

How much energy was this light taking from her?   
Shadow Weaver beheld she still possessed a considerable amount of light. She would devise a plan to have her use up all her powers.   
Wear her out first and interrogate her later.   
Although, Angella's exclamations of affection were throwing her off.   
She found her vision glued to her whenever she spoke her "I love you"'s. Shadow Weaver caught these moments intentionally. She looked for her eyes and held her in her gaze as she said it. Or she looked for her mouth and how it shaped the words.  
Shadow Weaver was not suppressing her own smiles. She never had to behind her mask, so she would not bother now. She enjoyed this as much as she would when simularly plying at her angelic prisoner in a clothed setting.  
Once the queen became less vocal she would ask her anything and she could proceed to display all she wanted to say herself. In other words, put her show on and truimph over the Rebellion.  
Angella look at her fondly. Seeing things to her that Shadow Weaver could not begin to imagine.

As Angella was sheathed in light, Shadow Weaver held her thight.  
Her shadows did not absorb the light. They were already powerfully sated, fed on red garnet power. Without an encouraging spell voluntarily linking her to the queen, grasping at her light beams was pointless. Unless she desired to hurt and possibly kill her in order to take her power as her own.  
Still she, and her shadows, really enjoyed holding Angella's power.  
She could be blinding when she became too bright, but this did not bother Shadow Weaver. Indeed she became bright as the Old Gods were told to be. Those who had held true forms that could scorch a mere mortal. But Shadow Weaver was drenched so deeply in the Old Darkness herself that absolute light could not hurt her.  
If anything this observation supported her childhood theory that angels were a watered-down remnant of a stronger magic that once must have ruled the world.   
In her own veins too there now ran a dark magic of greater eldritch origins.  
Her speculations slid aside as she had her shadows slip off of the light. In ribbons they retreated from Angella's thighs, her venus hill, her behind. It was gorgeous.   
Shadow Weaver brought her face close and visible to the queen.

"I love you" Angella said.   
She kissed down Shadow Weaver's neck. Then looked at her to pick up any kind of expression or movement that looked fun to her and could gladden her heart.  
Shadow Weaver almost replied. Everyone knew how dangerous the spoken word was in the Fright Zone. Yet she would not silence the queen. She could easily get away with this when pressed. A magic, of course. Deep delusion. She cast it most succesfully. Now the queen loved her.  
Shadow Weaver bit her lip.  
Thought she loved her.  
"Oh, don't give me that look," Angella said, not certain what exactly that look was or why it was rubbing her the wrong way. She was not that good at reading her roommate and bed companion yet. "I told you I don't mean much by it, it just happens during...this." she said again, embarressed, possibly.  
There was an impatient self-pleasing rubbing from Angella's body against hers.   
She was looking at her, once more directing "I love you." straigh at her.   
Shadow Weaver quickly pressed her lips to hers to capture them. And silence her? No.   
Angella slid herself back over her thigh, rubbing more.  
Mouth to mouth Shadow Weaver asked "Are you enjoying yourself? Was all of this acceptable for my regenerade queen?"  
Angella pressed her hips up again against Shadow Weaver. Beckoning.  
"Yes."  
She was interested in more?  
"Again?"   
"Again."  
Shadow Weaver smiled. 

"I am making you very happy." Angella stated. "I noticed it before." Shadow Weaver did not appreciate being called out on this. And what if she was? "Your eyes have been twinkling the whole time we've been here together."  
"My eyes don't twinkle."  
"Light up with joy? Darken with joy?" Angella babbled. Shadow Weaver was smiling still, despite turning away, a blush on her cheeks.   
It looked pretty, Angella thought.   
Shadow Weaver moved towards her again. "This isn't helping." she deflected.   
"What do you mean?"   
"Í notice I am only making your condition worse, your majesty."   
Angella blushed very deeply.  
"Yes, I think so too." Angella answered most readily. "You will just have to take me again and again and again," She kissed her close inbetween words. "until the problem, hopefully, solves itself."  
Shadow Weaver laughed. "Won't that grow weary?"   
"Not for me. How about you?"

Shadow Weaver wore a involuntary dazed look. Angella was not watching her as though she had gotten her life askew by sleeping with her.  
Shadow Weaver had made herself very good at comforting people with words and touches when she needed to steer them in the right direction. But on this occasion she had not felt she had done this. Certainly she mostly worked on instinct. Had she become this good? Or the queen had kept herself soft in her hands.  
She fully expected the queen's anger to rise later.  
"You're a heaven-sent." Angella praised her. 

The queen was moving and slippig, a tad clumsily, on Shadow Weaver's warm wettened thighs, made wet by Angella herself.  
She pressed a hand between Shadow Weaver's legs.   
Maybe not all by her.

Angella saw in the shadow, looked at the dark gleam and knew her, felt her exactly.   
This BrightMoon woman somehow aligned with her.  
She stroked Shadow Weaver's hair and with it a veil of darkness drew away.  
She was a dream, who had walked into the Fright zone. Who did not even appear lost. Who had screamed I love you's and was now raking her hair as though they always did this in bed together.  
Angella licked her lips, she appeared a bit shy once more. "Well," she rubbed her hands over Shadow Weaver's thighs.   
She opened them more. "Well?"  
"You'll have to find out what this entails."  
Shadow Weaver shifted on the bed. "You are in no position here to be making any plans." Angella laughed and proceeded:  
"We'll have to bathe together from now on, don't you agree? You told me about the Horde watersupplies... It would be best to save water." And her dark green bathing liquid.  
Angella thought of the misty soft pink foam of her own baths, the flowery scent of home. The vast Bright Moon baths. Rosepetals adrift. Roses would suit her. Red roses. She could give her a bundle, some, often, carry it in to her from the garden.   
Once she stole her away from the Horde.

Shadow Weaver drew her legs wide, and unabashedly her darkness curled around the queen again. 

\------------------  
Note from the author: my dear readers, I hope you are well in these times. I am sending you lots of love.

I am trying out a few things in this chapter. a.o. using the same word a few times in one alinea in a hopefully non-annoying way. I once had a teacher who would not let us use a word twice in a whole essay and I became so focused on this that I would push it to extremes and search for words in my entire storytext just to avoid one repetition. This often takes a lot of time and stops me from actual writing. So I am trying to teach myself these years to be okay with repeating words.

Also, what is this with English? I wish to write pretty smut and can find no nice word for butt cheeks? Those a beautiful, why is there no more poetic word to actually do them justice? And I found no word for, what is my language is, "venus hill" except for "mons pubic" which sound horrid when it should be delectable. I will clearly have to revise and expand on English in smut writings. It is not up to scratch yet and has to be improved. *goal set*


	11. Chapter 11

Shadow Weaver was endulging in Angella's softness.   
Queen Angella had taken the darkness, her hair, in her hands and held her between her legs, often relocating her grip. Angella was spread out wide over the bed, her legs too long for it.  
Shadow Weaver was licking her in coarse tongues. The queen lay among swirls, dark tendrils stroking soft circles on her body. Shadow Weaver changed the texture of her touches and tongues from rough to smooth and back again at what she considered to be the most fitting moments.   
Shadow Weaver felt Angella's response to her touch resonate within her. Her light was easily influenced. Having her was such a special delicacy.  
She loved closing her shadows closing around her.  
Shadow Weaver looked up at her.  
The queen brought her hand up to the gemstones on her chest. Mists fleetingly brushed her there.  
Loving shadows kept tilting Angella's head back. Whisps of touches caressed her face. All the more often. Unless she was mistaken her captor was developing a fixation on with her face.  
Her scream ghosted from the room. Every round created new echoes of their actions. Screams of her pleasure amplified by her growing trust in the woman.   
Angella often watched Shadow Weaver's eyes as she enjoyed herself. This added something for the queen, her body reacted stronger when she felt more connected with her.  
She felt the shadows soften, she gazed down freely to the face uncovered by shadows or mask.  
Angella smiled at her, her hand clutched at her chest. She was remarkably okay with her. She liked her. She looked again at her as if she were pretty.  
Shadow Weaver had not been certain someone could still look at her like this when uncovered, without a degree of lies or coercion.  
The queen pressed against her.  
A shadow alerted her mind.

"What is it?" the gentle qeen asked, not without a gasp, noting Shadow Weaver's distraction. There was a certain level of personal need seeping through her voice, an immediate distress.  
Shadow Weaver disentangled herself and Angella whined at the loss of her.  
"There is someone outside...."  
Shadow Weaver grasped Angella's face, she put her hands upon her cheeks pressing hard as to leave a personal imprint.   
The sorceress kissed her forcibly.

She put her shadows to a rest and put her mask on.  
A knocking.  
"First commander..."  
"Shadow Weaver!"   
"Don't do that! It is impolite. We need a title." Soldiers debating outside the door.  
"What is the correct title?"  
"Isn't Shadow Weaver a title?"  
"Is it a name?"  
"Is she even a real person?"  
"Heck I don't know. We are not supposed to ever address her, are we? Just pray she doesn't pick us out."  
"We are not supposed to be here, this is wrong. You were only enlisted from a recent conquest, I've lived here my whole live. You do not bother her. It is the golden rule of survival. We are dead." 

Shadow Weaver rose in shadows to assume a larger stature of herself before she opened the door. Her shadows wrapped her dress back on, then threw themselves as a cloak all over and around her.   
She glanced back at Angella, who looked determinedly at a dark sliver idle on the bed next to her, as though she was going to try taking the darkness in hands and sheath herself on it.  
Something pleasantly wisted inside Shadow Weaver. She had to look away and compose herself. She was excited to have her again.

She made her shadows illusive to the queen's grasp as a precaution.  
"Shadow Weaver?" Faint from the outside, already terrified.  
"Yeeeeess." the sorcerss answered, in the most monumentally dismayed tone.   
This alone made it abundantly clear they had no business or purpose here. She was being put upon and their very existance was trivial.   
Angella could image how frightened the soldiers were.

The door opened before they could save themselves. They froze to the spot. Their faces full of regret.  
Shadow Weaver stood in the doorway, everything in her wake, the room behind her, the whole bed area was darkened.  
"Lord Hordak wants you."  
"Calls you. Summons! Summons you." a second soldier piped up. That was better, that was it.

Angella watched the way Shadow Weaver's floating hair tangled. It looked mussed to her. Angella was not sure on how this could be when she could change her shape at will. Shadow Weaver had been alternating between a mortal form and formlessness one.  
Angella quite liked her kind of bed hair.  
"The questioning is ongoing."   
Her answer was resolute and she closed the door on them.

"Where...where is..." the soldier struggled, scared to ask, also scared to stop the door from closing but painfully putting his foot on the danger line where it got crushed painfully. He screamed his pain away, soon stood hopping, cradling his foot. "we have to see the room. "

To her doubtful credit, Shadow Weaver looked slightly less inconvenienced, almost interested by the soldier's spontaneously harmful tactic, she waved herself out of the way to give them a look at the room and by extend, the heart of the matter, at queen Angella.

She was well-aware that Lord Hordak would have tried to summon her via the intercom in the Black Garnet room where she was supposed to be interviewing the prisoner.  
She knew just as well that none of these soldieres would dare call her out on this.  
She felt Angella's hands trying to stroke her shadows behind her back.  
There was a game ongoing in the air between them. Their elements, light and dark, were unwilling to part or give way to each other. Their dance streaked the floor.

She exposed the queen on the bed where she glowed, the prettiest sight they must ever have seen.   
Everyone was taken aback.   
Shadow Weaver most of all. She lost concentration during what was supposed to be a glimpse of the queen and almost dropped the veiling shadows entirely. They had seen enough to know that she was naked.  
Though most of the darkness before her had stayed in place, Angella had felt the shift. She pulled up the covers in her fists. She covered herself up in more than shadows.  
Shadow Weaver considered that it mustn't look too much like she was politely shielding her prisoner and so before she took the queen entirely away from sight again Shadow Weaver sludged a tendril onto the bed in most menacing a manner. It crawled towards the queen's legs, as to leave no doubt to the private nature of the torture she was receiving.   
The dark moved as it would heave itself into her...already had...

It did not matter what lie she had to depict, worse had already been thought of her.   
The queen wasn't crawling back convincingly but then, she might be paralysed with fear.   
She did however scowl at Shadow Weaver with the force of a bullbozer for being put on display.   
Her apparent ease in the bed and familiarity with Shadow Weaver could be taken as a sign of her strength of personality. It had a rather nice semblance to it, to a certain degree, of achieved surrender.  
There was no blood in sight, but this did not mean there was no pain. Concepts of torture grew muddled and deceptive with magic. They were all too familiar with Shadow Weaver's cruelty when faced with obstructions to her goals.  
The soldiers looked sufficiently, in fact overly, disgusted. They trembled with anger when directly faced with the injustice of the Fright Zone. She felt them become rebels in that moment. She scolded herself for how this move backfired. She had taken it too far.  
She would have to have a talk with them about 'the things we do for good of the Horde' later. Their loyalty and training had to hold up.   
The queen was so very ...so ...very... even from a distance, more so from a slight distance...so lovely.  
Shadow Weaver just wanted to go back into the softness of her.   
She leered at the soldiers. 

Her shadows cloaked the room again.  
"Tell him I am on my way." Shadow Weaver spoke to the aghast sholdiers.   
The poor benighted Horde servants. Used to keeping blind eyes, used to not knowing, to not being considered good enough, to be kept wanting, to be horrified. They knew to always stay out of Shadow Weaver's business.  
Yet,  
one started to walk into the room, venturing into the dark in a slow shuffle.  
"Your majesty? Are you...well? If you are not, if you can see my arm, please take it and I will escort you out to find you somewhere safe."  
This man with no power, no authority, despite Shadow Weaver's terrifying pressence, went on. Something crashed, Shadow Weaver almost flung her anger at him.  
She heard Angella say a few sentences along the lines of "No, she was treating me well, until just now ..." Did the queen glare at her once more? "It's okay, you can go."

How could they act as if they had grown up unknowing of the concept of torture?   
So much depended on them turning away, staying ignorant or pretending ignorance, knowing they did not want to find out.  
At the same time Horde soldiers were so often confronted with Shadow Weaver making great painful displays. It was a weird line to maintain. It usually worked.  
Their soldiers were effective and respectful and condoning methods they'd rather know nothing about. It was a lot of work to maintain this situation. She had to put all the effort into upholding this mentality among the soldiers, especially since Lord Hordak did not. He got by with a few grunts and gloomy make-up. 

"Get out of here!" She chased them out of the room and then out of the corridor, goading them on with a deliberate shadow-push.

Her Horde soldiers were caring towards Angela, an inhabiting enemy. They had accepted her, as one of their own. When had this happened? After meeting her only once. During that one training session when Angella gave them pointers? It had truly taken as little as that to sway their minds on the Evil Princess Queen they had sworn decades long to hate.  
Shadow Weaver had indeed raised them to be kind to their own. They were used to welcoming defeated forces as new recruits.  
She had raised them not to question her and her ways. The Horde. She wanted them to be devoted but also caring and kind to their own and talented, like sweet Micah.   
And unlike his daughter who had burst out of her shackles in an explosion of power and hit her in the face. As her mother would have done too if she hadn't...taken a shine to her.  
Shadow Weaver turned to face Angella, who grinned at her. She still liked her.

Shadow Weaver straightened herself.  
She wanted to see that definite "I love you" expression on her face again.  
"I had to ..." She would not let herself sound close to apologetic. "I am...sorry that was necessary."  
"You are, are you?" Angella looked quizzically.   
"Yes."  
Shadow Weaver put on more clothes. "You'd better ... Would you like me to help you get dressed?"  
Angella slid off the bed and looked inside her suitcase "I'll manage." She took out fresh clothes.   
Shadow Weaver hardly paid her attention. She glided back and forth through the room, pacing. Preparing herself.

Angella watched in fascination how Shadow Weaver braced herself for meeting with Hordak. She had her posture figured out soon enough.  
She floated by with a focused look, her hair aloft, staunch, ready for impact and a delicate hand lingered impatiently by her side, twitching.  
This is weirdly staged hand was the greatest tell to her insecurity and short temper. She was fed up with the Horde.

Shadow Weaver halted for a moment when she saw the wavy pale pik skirt Angella was wearing. It was very pretty.  
She opened the door and guided the queen out.  
There were no attacks from Angella on thier way to Hordak's chamber this time. She refrained herself, for Shadow Weaver's sake. She walked next to Shadow Weaver, pretty close, she would be stepping on the tendrils of her robe if those did not dogde her step.   
The FrightZone was a wasteland around them.

This time Shadow Weaver was instructed to leave the prisoner outside.  
She tied her next to the door, to a railing on the wall.   
After binding her hands with rope, she tied her wrists with shadows as well.   
She saw the queen smile dangerously and gave her wrist bonds an extra tug.  
Angella's eyes looked happy.   
The shadow anklet was still in place. Angella felt her check that too. 

She leaned into Angella.   
"This won't take long."  
She would have to present her case convincingly. Lie, on how far she was.   
Nothing she had not done before, when she could afford to. It gave her a rush, but the timing was wrong. It was risky to do this now when she felt that lately she had already been working herself into Hordak's discredit, since Adora left her.  
Her health deteriorated ever further, she was keeping that a secret too.  
She felt Angella close to her, her proximity pulling her back to the moment, the queen whispered to her ear: "I'll kill him if he hurts you."

In wonderous distraction Shadow Weaver went inside.


End file.
